Up, Up And Away........

Up, up and away...in Life Flight....
Well, I guess a combination of things.....moving all of the stuff out of her room and office (and you all know what the office looks like!) in order for new carpet to be laid; working over the weekend with the kids on their Homecoming skits and music; narrating the skits and all the other jazz just took it's toll on Andrea.....

At the conclusion of the skits, just prior to the voting beginning...Andrea was announcing the contestants, and Nan came flying out of the booth and grabbed Melanie. Nan then called 911 and Aunt Jo came to get me. When I got up to the booth, Melanie was bawling and screaming at Andrea to respond to her and said she couldn't get a pulse and she started CPR -- I begin talking loudly to Andrea and begging her to respond. She was a horrible purple color and bleeding out of her mouth. I was worried about the blood but wondered if she had hit her head and bitten her tongue. Matt Ostmann arrived with oxygen and Dad came running in with the monitor from the ambulance . The rest of the ambulance crew arrived and they assumed she was having a stroke, so called Life Flight to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible.

She came to about this time and they got her out of the building and loaded into the ambulance, where Dad and Kim Simpson gave her a blessing while we waited for Life Flight. Dad was in his pajamas because it was pajama day, so he ran home to change his clothes and came back and got in with Billie Jo and me to go to Salt Lake. When she arrived, they did lots of tests, EKG, EEG, CatScan and blood work. As always, waiting in the emergency room is not the most eventful situation ever, but Dad was able to solve that experience -- and I will let him take over from here.

After they brought MZ out of the CatScan and told us that everything was looking good, I thought it would be a good time to catch a little nap while they took her in for the EEG. I have had a toothache the past couple of days and so I took my total allotment of pain pills and lay down on a couple of chairs for a little rest. Somewhere in the fog of the nap, I thought I heard Aunt Dorothy calling for me to get up; which, of course, I tried to ignore to continue with my sleep. But no. The next call to alarm was my own sweet wife calling for me to get up and help someone. I can ignore Dorothy, but not Billie Sue. I awoke to a commotion in the hallway next to the waiting room and everyone telling me to help the policeman who was trying to subdue someone on the floor. As I stood up, the perp (perpetrator, for those of you who have no law enforcement background or who haven't watched any crime TV)jumped up, escaping the policeman and fleeing down the hall towards the main part of the hospital. Shaking my head to clear the drug induced haze, I leaped over a row of chairs and started after the two. I stopped momentarily to recover the policeman's handcuffs and saw the pair turn the corner going down the hallway towards the cafeteria. Just as I reached the hallway, I saw the perp (still being hotly pursued) go around to the next hallway where the main elevators are and then turn back towards the hallway that I was in and head for the main entrance. By this time, I had made up a lot of distance, and as he was trying to round the corner to go out the front doors, I caught up with him and made a diving tackle. My left hand got hold of the loop on the side of his carpenter's pants and my right hand knocked his feet out from under him. He went skidding into the pharmacy with me still hanging on to him. The policeman then jumped on the perp and I handed the handcuffs to him and waited until he got him cuffed. The guy was cursing and swearing but didn't really give much resistance after that. The cop had tried to taser him but the barbs just stuck in his coat and he was trailing the wires as he ran. I handed the cop a pair of keys I had picked up along with the cuffs and said, "Book him Dano." Then I went back and got a free bandaid for the carpet burn on my elbow. For a minute I thought that maybe I was still asleep on the chairs and that somehow Nik and I had had a "twin" experience catching criminals, but the scab is real and Nik isn't really my twin anyway. Anyway, it was kind of cool.

And to think I had told everyone I knew that he was a pain intolerant kind of guy and a boob to boot! Glad to know that all those years of Special Forces training didn't go to waste! Anyway, it is more than a rugburn (don't tell him or he'll whine), it is a loss of skin!
Well, the day finally ended around 6:30 with Andrea being released and the diagnosis that she had a seizure. The doctors said that with all of the circumstances she had faced, anyone could have had a seizure, especially shortly after a brain trauma. We all went to eat at Chili's, as none of us had eaten all day. She is a bit wobbly but says she's going back to school tomorrow to handle Homecoming. She had a pretty bad headache, but we didn't know if that was from not having food all day and the lack of caffeine or from the seizure itself. We are so thankful that once again, Heavenly Father has watched over our baby sister.
This last picture is of Rob on Saturday. He and I went to Salt Lake to pick up the impeller motor for the hot tub and his request of to eat at Chinese Buffet. As you can see, his eyes were bigger than his tummy, but he did enjoy himself trying!